Pratia arenaria Hook.f.
P. angulata var. arenaria Hook. f. Fl. N.Z. 1, 1853, 157.
Type locality: "open sandy shores of Enderby's Islet, Rendezvous Harbour". Type: K, "1452. Lieut. H. Oakeley".
Glab. far-creeping branching herb forming patches up to c. 1 m. diam. Stems up to ± 5 mm. diam., somewhat succulent, with acrid yellowish sap. Strongly insolated plants quite prostrate with rather close-set branches and subsessile lvs; plants of shady places and damp ground of laxer growth, with rather distant, distinctly petioled, thinner lvs and ascending to spreading elongate branchlets. Lvs on petioles ± 1-5 mm. long. Lamina pale green, somewhat fleshy to membr., obovate-oblong, rather abruptly narrowed to base, sinuate to obscurely, bluntly dentate (rarely rather coarsely toothed), 10-15 × 7-15 mm., 15-30 × 10-20 mm. Fls solitary on slender peduncles 1-2 cm. long. Calyx 1-2-5 mm. long; lobes narrow-oblong to narrow-triangular, acute. Corolla white, deeply lobed; lower lip spreading, upper ascending; lobes ± 10 mm. long. Berry somewhat compressed, obliquely subovoid to subglobose, ± 7-10 × 7 mm., purplish red.
DIST.: S. Southeast Otago, Ch., A., C., Ant. Damp and sandy ground.
FL. 12-3. FT. 1-4.
Cockayne (Subantarct. Is N.Z. 1, 1909, 211) points out that "The specific name is quite misleading, since in Chatham Island it grows in abundance on all kinds of soils and in both wet and dry stations." Sorensen (D.S.I.R. Cape Exped. Ser. Bull. 7, 1951, 33) says, "Confined mainly to swampy places". The plants are very plastic; the contrast between a Chatham Id specimen grown on an exposed rockery by W. B. Brockie and a clone from it (about 10 cm. long) grown in a damp, slightly shaded, garden is most marked. The shade plant has spread rapidly to occupy an area over 1 m. long and 3 dm. wide in less than 2 years, in spite of some checking. It has developed ascending to sprawling branchlets up to c. 25 cm. long. In the same period the rockery plant has remained prostrate and advanced hardly more than 15 cm.
